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Ozow (Pty) Ltd
Ozow lets people and businesses pay each other instantly with bank transfers instead of cards.
Ozow is a South African payments company that lets people pay for things straight from their bank account instead of using a credit card. A shopper checking out online picks Ozow, chooses their bank, and gets sent into their own banking app to approve a transfer. The money moves from their account to the merchant's account right away, and the merchant gets a confirmation within seconds so the order can go ahead.
The customer pays with money they already have, so nobody runs up a card bill or pays interest. That is the simple pitch that made Ozow popular in a country where many people have bank accounts but relatively few use credit cards. Its heart is a fast bank-to-bank payment rail — open banking before the term was fashionable. It earns a small fee from the merchant on each transaction, similar to how card networks take a slice, but usually cheaper than card fees. Merchants like it because the money clears instantly, far fewer payments get reversed for fraud, and they reach customers who don't own a credit card. Ozow was founded in 2014 and grew into one of South Africa's best-funded fintechs, backed by investors including Tencent and the World Bank's IFC. It is not only for online checkouts anymore: it also runs point-of-sale payments for physical shops and payout tools that let businesses send money to people, such as refunds or wages. Its big rivals are card networks like Visa and Mastercard, plus South African banks pushing their own instant payment apps.
The real prize Ozow is chasing is South Africa's PayShap instant payment system, the country's answer to systems like India's UPI, which lets people pay by phone number without bank details. The company has pushed hard into this space, because whoever owns the checkout button owns the fees. It also faces the classic fintech problem: incumbents with deep pockets and regulators who shape the rules. Ozow's bet is simple — if paying from your bank account can be as quick and easy as tapping a card, plenty of people will choose it.
Saved answer · last researched 10 Nov 2026